Black-Eyed Susan a long-term goal for Jumping the Gun
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Trainer Andy Simoff sent Jumping the Gun back home for a well-deserved winter layoff on Tuesday, a break that will likely last six to seven weeks. The Delaware Park-based juvenile filly capped her 2025 campaign with a runner-up finish in the Grade 2 Demoiselle on Saturday at Aqueduct.
Despite finishing 8 1/2 lengths behind the Todd Pletcher-trained filly Zany, Simoff said he was happy with Jumping the Gun’s effort in graded stakes company. In five career starts, including two stakes wins at Delaware, she has never finished worse than second.
“Inside the sixteenth pole, I thought she was running pretty well,” Simoff said. “I didn’t think second was in jeopardy, the way she was running. She only got second by a neck or whatever, but it just looked like she had the other fillies measured.”
By finishing second in the Demoiselle, Jumping the Gun earned five points on the Road to the Kentucky Oaks, placing her in a seven-way tie for 13th in the standings. Simoff doesn’t have any delusions of grandeur regarding a trip to Churchill Downs, but in the far-off future, he does have an ideal target for his precocious filly.
“I know she has Oaks points and all, but we’re going to probably look for something different, something maybe a little easier,” Simoff said. “I think my long-term goal with her would be the Black-Eyed Susan right now. I just love that race. It’s a local race, and I think she has a real good shot.”
The Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan, traditionally run the day before the Preakness at Pimlico, will be run on May 15 at Laurel Park. In past years, fields for the race have typically been slightly more forgiving than the Kentucky Oaks, giving Simoff and Jumping the Gun a softer target in her 3-year-old campaign.
Before her trip to Aqueduct this month, the filly made her first four starts at Delaware. Undefeated in her first three races, she won the $75,000 Blue Hen and $100,000 Small Wonder before coming up short in the $100,000 White Clay Creek. The winner that day, Dazzling Dame, was coming off a fourth-place finish in the Grade 3 Pocahontas at Churchill Downs.
Jumping the Gun might still have something to prove against the very best in her division, but in the Mid-Atlantic ranks her campaign stands out as one of the best among juvenile dirt runners. The road to the Black-Eyed Susan remains unclear, but Simoff sees enough potential to get there when she returns to racing next year.
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